Cokey:



Not tonight bud

jonh:

I don’t think we played bad, as such but we were so dumb. The tactic of constantly high balling the left edge was bizarre. I get going there a few times but all match…when they look rock solid in the air….bizarre.




We had enough opportunities to be a few scores up in the first half with the errors Leigh made and simply couldn’t because we lacked athleticism/enthusiasm.


When Farrimond broke on the right edge after the contact from Keighran when he got run down Leeming was the only Wigan shirt anywhere near him, the left edge didn’t even push at all. The result was Leeming scooting sidewards then backwards to find support then putting in a drop off which Havard just looked at as it hit the floor. 


Really poor.

Allypie:

Man and ball, man and ball, man and ball....it was drummed into us. Clamp that ball. Ain't rocket science...done us today!
From cruising to losing. From Smith kicking out on the full we were clueless and out enthused and out energised. Can't play as bad again - I hope..

Big Steve:

I thought we started well with far more movement and intent to run the ball out from our half, we made it harder to defend instead of using the dull 1 out carries we've had recently.  We were far more aggressive in defence.   It's usually a good indicator when we start like this that our attitude is good and we're likely to win........


But, I thought both Liam and Abbas looked like they were at 80% and still nowhere near fitness.    It would have been interesting to see what Wade could have made of those chances out wide in the first half - but i think he would have struggled with the carries off our line - on balance probably the wrong game to make his debut.   


As others mentioned, we seemed to lack some support play when we did make breaks  - it' was almost as though it wasn't in the game plan to make breaks from our half so the other edge were still expecting a defensive play.


Which leads me onto the 2nd half........ we went back into our shells and reverted back to playing non attacking rugby with the same predictable last play from Smith the the high kick into the corner.   I don't understand why we continue to use the same tactics Huddersfield used against us in the CC final at Spurs.    I know Peet's strategy is to work hard, tire the opposition and put on points later  - but I'm pretty sure the only attacking move we put on in the 2nd half was in the final 5 minutes when Field made a half break on the LHS.     


We have the players in Field, Junior, Wardle, Marshall, Farrimond, Mago and Smith to open teams up on the outside or inside yet this season we have very rarely shown the desire to even try - apart from the Vegas game when we clearly went there with the intention to entertain and attack.  Why are we continually leaving it so late to start even thinking about attacking - doesn't really make sense when we have so many strike players and we are making it easy for fit teams to defend against us.   We can no longer rely on being the fittest team to stay in the grind and bank on scoring tries in the last 10 mins.


Still confident in Peet but I do feel we need to tweak our game plan.

moto748:

Did Saints go through a mid-season slump during their period of dominance?